


No One

by fineandwittie



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Major character death - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-18
Updated: 2013-11-18
Packaged: 2018-01-01 22:45:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1049455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineandwittie/pseuds/fineandwittie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was January, though he wasn’t certain what day. His fingers were beginning to turn blue with cold and he’d forgotten his scarf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One

Sherlock stood in the silent graveyard. It was January, though he wasn’t certain what day. His fingers were beginning to turn blue with cold and he’d forgotten his scarf. 

No, that wasn’t entirely true. He hadn’t cared enough to wear it. He’d barely bothered with a coat, but leaving without one in this kind of weather would have upset Mrs. Hudson.

He chaffed his hands together, to warm them and to keep himself from reaching out to run his fingers over the words on the granite in front of him. Engraved on John’s headstone along with his name and years and rank, Sherlock had had them put,

"He was my North, my South, my East and West,/ My working week and my Sunday rest,/ My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;/ I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong./ The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;/ Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;/ Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood./ For nothing now can ever come to any good." 

He stood, staring at these words and realizing the bitter irony of the reversal of their positions. This time, it was Sherlock in the cemetery, begging John to come back, to be alive, to forgive him for wasting time that they could have spent with each other. This time, there was no one else there. No one watching to see Sherlock shatter into a million pieces. No one to see that nothing will put him back together again.

No one.

This was the twenty-eighth time he’d visited John’s grave. An irrational impulse that he could not divest himself of. He felt at home here. With John, who was the only home he’d really ever had. He had given three years of his life and caused unquantifiable pain, and now it was all for nothing. John was dead anyway. Struck by a stay bullet, on deployment in Syria. He should never have been called up again, since he’d been invalided out. But, according to Mycroft, there’d been some glitch in the system that they hadn’t caught in time. John had only been overseas for two weeks when the bullet had taken him.

That had been in December. They’d shipped his body back and the funeral was just after Christmas. Sherlock had been assured that time heals all wounds. He thought that perhaps that was true, but not if the wound was an amputation. John had removed all of Sherlock internal organs and taken them with him into the frozen ground. His brain not longer worked properly; he could barely think straight, never mind logically, and all his memories seemed to be of John. He couldn’t breathe correctly any longer; it was either short breaths to prevent the sobs that always seems caught in his throat or long inhalations and exhalations, breathing in whatever scent of John had been left in his room and his clothing. He never ate anymore; he didn’t think he’d had a whole meal since the funeral and he’d taken up smoking again. His heart…well, there was a impenetrable ball of ice where that used to be, even if no one else believe it had existed in the first place. 

Standing in the January cold for five hours finally took its toll and Sherlock’s knees gave out, planting him on the ground above John’s body. He dug his hands into the soil and held tightly. Perhaps, the cold wasn’t so very bad after all, he mused, still staring at the headstone. 

John is cold all the time now, isn’t he? And why should Sherlock be warm, if John is cold.

“For nothing now can ever come to any good.” Sherlock read quietly and thought how very true that was. 

What good was any of it, when John was so very cold and pale and shut away inside a box for the rest of eternity until the worms can eat away at his flesh. 

Sherlock knew exactly what a month old corpse would look like. He had a detailed picture of it in his mind. It was stuck there and he could not seem to delete it, no matter how hard he tried. 

Music began to play from somewhere. Sherlock thought perhaps it was coming from his phone, but John was dead, so who was there that he cared to talk to?

He was growing warm now and sleepy. He was never sleepy anymore. He’d thought sleep a nuisance when John was here, but now that he was gone it was an unattainable fantasy, a safe place where John still smiled at him. 

He was still outside and it was still January. It should not be warm, but for all his superior intellect, Sherlock could not think why this might be a problem. 

He shut his eyes for a moment, sleepy and warm and feeling safe for the first time since a bullet killed the other half of himself. It seemed an eternity or maybe only a moment, when he opened his eyes again.  
Standing in front of him, John was smiling. Wearing his oatmeal colored jumper and brown trousers. He didn’t have a coat, but his smile said he didn't need one. He reached out a hand to Sherlock and Sherlock took it, because he had learned never to refuse John anything. John felt solid in Sherlock’s grasp. Sherlock smiled and stood. 

They walked away from the tombstone together, leaving behind two bodies that were no longer needed.


End file.
